NASA, partners discuss commercial crew progress

6:29 PM,
Jan. 9, 2013

Charlie Bolden speaks at a commercial crew update event in August 2012 at Kennedy Space Center.

Written by

James Dean
FLORIDA TODAY

NASA and a panel of industry partners today touted the progress they've made developing commercial spacecraft that could resume flights of astronauts from U.S. soil later this decade.

"We hope to do this very quickly, very cost-effectively and very safely," Phil McAlister, director of commercial spaceflight development at NASA headquarters, said during a press conference at Kennedy Space Center. NASA last year awarded $1.1 billion to Boeing, Sierra Nevada Corp. and SpaceX to finish designs of new crew vehicles by May 2014. SpaceX said it hopes to perform an abort test from its Cape ...